This is a bit of a meandering post about those crucial, yet highly annoying, people in high school and college who will grow up to be our nation's future. As someone just out of college (well, it's been five years now, a scary thought, though I'm in grad school and can still keep tabs), I thought I'd present my thoughts about the evolution of conservative and liberal thought among students.
I am a product of fancy-pants schools; this post, in other words, is about the culture of the young (financial) elite.
High School
In the early to mid 1990s, when I was in high school (New England prep type place), there was no question where the "action" was. Without question, of those who took an interest in politics, the most intelligent and clever students were on the right.
Our school's administration was broadly liberal, as were most of the faculty; it took a great deal of intelligence and fortitude to argue the conservative position in the classroom or in the various student publications. In general, the students were liberal -- as evidenced by the reception of hack conservative Dinesh D'Souza's speech at a school assembly.
It helped, of course, that conservative arguments largely proceeded from "first principles" -- our conservatives were mainly of the libertarian sort, although we did have a few social conservatives who combined a strange hatred for minorities and gays along with that weird kind of surreal politeness to actual members of those groups. In other words, it didn't take much research or background work to become a "respected" voice on the right.
Also interesting, I think, were the attitudes of the faculty. Most of the faculty were middle of the road liberals, Clinton voters who weren't particularly interested in politics but did generally subscribe to the idea that gays weren't evil, that the poor were sometimes fucked over, and that Vietnam sucked. Our faculty were wonderful, mostly kooky people with weird obsessions; finding someone with a conspiracy theory about Plato was easier than finding one with a conspiracy about Newt or Bill.
We had one or two lefties, mostly products of the 1960s, and we had one or two conservatives mostly in the old-school National Review mould. Interestingly, the faculty on the extremes were often regarded by the students as some of the best teachers. They were engaging, they had opinions, and they were usually -- though not always -- fair. Some of the lefties had a thing for speech control (they acted a bit like the right-wing stereotype of the PC crowd), and some of the righties had a thing for argument by anecdote.
College
(New England ivy type place.) This, I think, was a big switch. First of all, the extremes were much more populated. We had hardcore lefties who wanted socialism, and hardcore righties who would support mandatory abortions for blacks if they weren't anti-choice.
Faculty viewpoints were interesting. Despite the media stereotypes, the only political views I heard expressed in lectures or campus newspapers came from the dozen or so self-appointed conservatives, most of whom had tenure.
Meanwhile, I saw the influence of the right-wing money machine. There were two conservative newspapers; the more extreme one, which did things like publish an "enemies of America" list including faculty and students, received huge grants from an outside foundation. (The one left wing paper limped along with barely enough money to survive, since I graduated, though, it's been doing a lot better.)
In general, the conservative students no longer gained the respect of the general student body. They were seen as attention whores, always willing to pull a stunt to get coverage (such as the student who wanted a $1 refund on his health care bill because the student center provided abortion counseling.)
The slick "first principles" arguments looked less and less slick as people generally realized that there is theory, and there is practice. A (small) but significant number of students were not extremely wealthy, and their experiences helped balance the debate. In general, these issues combined to make the student body middle-of-the-road liberals; on occasion, though, a well thought out left-wing issue could mobolize surprising numbers of students.
Post College
(Tri-state ivy type place.) Now I'm finishing up grad school. Down here, the mood is mostly apolitical. The culture is much different than it was at my undergrad institution: students are much more apathetic. Editorials in the student newspaper are about local, student issues, and rarely touch on politics (expect to exude a rather terrifying sense of entitlement.)
Amusingly, though, the faculty are quite similar. We have a similar group of self-appointed conservative "truth tellers" who complain about discrimination against Christians and whites (my loyalty to my old alma mater draws me to think of them as cut-rate versions of the ones we had up North.) I don't follow the student newspapers, but the occasional speeches advertised lead me to believe that the conservative groups have much greater resources and organization to bring hot-button conservatives to campus.
The attitude of the administration here is to minimize political organization on either the left or the right. Every day, a rather skilled set of bureaucrats seems to broker new compromises over the (often insanely trivial) issues that the small groups of righties and lefties fight over. My general impression is that if the administration could wave a wand and make everyone forget about the outside world, they would.
Meanwhile, I look at my college friends. The lefties who want to get into politics are getting fucked over, while the right-wingers, even those with little talent, immediately got some pretty sweet jobs in conservative journals and think tanks.
Final Thoughts
I expect the presence of liberals and left-wingers on campus -- and the outside institutional support for them -- to grow. My feeling -- perhaps optimistic, but bourne out by things like Dkos, Draft Clark, and Dean for America -- is that politics, in contrast to the Clinton era, is a large spot on the radar of young people. Lots of fundamental issues are being fought out -- questions about what we are as a nation -- and I believe these will attract more students to think hard about the issues.
The real thing that the big money donors on the left need to realize is that the right is killing us at the high school and college, and just-post-college level. The left needs to wake up and start grooming people for leadership positions early on -- they need to start summer schools and "think tank" workshops for the younger people, and they need to give realistic job opportunities to college graduates with a left-wing skew and good credentials.